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Nelson men concealed drug dealer's £170,000 heroin haul

TWO men who arranged to get rid of a dealer's car containing heroin with a potential street value of £170,000, have been spared jail.

Supplier Rockab Afzal had been arrested and had enlisted associate Farhaan Zaroof, 22, to remove the Renault Megane from Pilgrim Street, Nelson.

Two hoax 'diversionary' calls were then made to police to try to lure them away from the area to Brierfield, but officers caught Zaroof and another man trying to take the vehicle away on a low loader, Burnley Crown Court heard.

Inside the Renault were 25 grams of heroin worth £1,400 and two kilos of cutting agent, which, the court was earlier told, could be used to increase the drugs profit to an estimated £171,000.

Zaroof and his accomplice in the dock Aqeel Shah, 22, claimed they didn't know exactly what was in the car, but knew it was something illegal - and a judge said if they had known, the sentence would have been different.

Zaroof, of Berkeley Street and Shah, of Hartley Street, both Nelson, had each admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice and were given nine months in custody, suspended for a year, with 160 hours unpaid work.

Kathryn Johnson, prosecuting, said Afzal and Shahid Ansar were involved in a heroin supply conspiracy. Afzal, 29, of Beaufort Street, Nelson, was last October sent to prison for two years nine months.

Sentencing, Recorder Michael Blakey said without any shadow of a doubt, the case crossed the custody threshold.

He told the defendants: "You knew full well there were items in that motor vehicle that were illegal and tried to divert the police away so the car couldn't be detained by them."